The Moon and the Desert, page 38
Butler Media @JenButler
@BionicMan, that’s why you’re a hero, dearest.
ChirpChat, July 2044
“Thomas hasn’t had to do much in cross-examination. The questions he does ask are pretty damaging to the prosecution, but Ramirez seems to be hurting his case all on his own. Still, I can’t help thinking that Ramirez still has another shoe to drop. It has to be something they think will trump everything else and convict her,” Glenn confided to Jen.
“I would imagine he thinks that your testimony will settle it,” she told him.
“I’m not so sure. Ramirez and Thomas both summoned me. I’m not sure if I’m witness for the prosecution or the defense.”
“You’re the witness for the truth.”
“And if one or the other doesn’t like what I have to say?”
“That’s on them. Just do what’s right.”
Prosecutor Ramirez started delving into events on Percheron. Dvorak was questioned at length as to why he would relinquish command to someone who was basically a reservist, when he was a line officer and second in command of Percheron.
“But she outranks me. We’re both majors, but she has seniority.”
“Major Barbier was not in your chain of command.”
“We had orders placing her in our chain of command. She was an Individual Mobilization Augmentee from the Selected Reserve. That meant she was assigned to active duty with the Percheron and outranked me. She was our chief medical officer, and the captain was unfit for duty. We were facing an illness that was possibly infectious, and it was for certain that I didn’t understand any of it. I offered her command by seniority, but she actually didn’t want it. She did tell me what to tell the crew. As long I was satisfied with her legitimacy—which I was—the crew would follow.”
“But she locked you in your quarters.”
“We were in quarantine. She told us all to self-isolate because we didn’t know if we’d brought a virus from Earth, or something alien from Mars. We stocked up on rations, went to our quarters, and stayed there. It was all voluntary.”
“So, you abandoned your duties to just sit in your quarters.”
“Percheron was in coast phase. There was nothing critical coming up for two months except routine maintenance. Philips did most of that anyway, and Yvette said it was better to just have one person running around than all of us. Besides, many routine tasks could be performed over individual comms.”
“You just listened to her, followed her orders with no question, no critical reasoning. There was no questioning why she was in charge?”
“Major Barbier outranked me. She outranked all of us, and she was our doctor. We know her; we trust her. She’s our doctor.”
Glenn mused over the fact that he certainly couldn’t fault Yvette for taking on effective command while also being the chief medical officer. After all, that’s exactly what he’d done, although he’d eventually shifted more of the ship’s command duties to Dvorak as he’d recovered.
The difference was that he’d been ordered to assume both roles. Yvette had done so on her own initiative.
Ramirez questioned Gavin Taketani next.
“Doctor Taketani, you were the seniormost official present on Percheron. You were Mars mission commander. Why didn’t you take command when Captain LeBlanc was declared unfit for duty?”
“Excuse me, Mister Ramirez. I am an administrator, not a ship commander. I am neither Space Force officer, nor qualified to command and direct Space Force personnel.”
“But Major Barbier worked for you. She was a Space Force officer under your command on Marsbase.”
“Yes, but that was on Mars. We were in a MarsX facility that was as much civilian as it was military. On Percheron we were on a Space Force ship on which the chain of command was the ultimate authority. I had no rank to order those people around. I had no experience in the operation of a spaceship.”
“But Yvette Barbier is a doctor, not a ship captain.”
“She was the ranking Space Force officer. She had the authority and seniority to direct Major Dvorak and the others to perform their duties as necessary. We were in good hands. We trusted her.”
“And when she locked everybody up?”
“We weren’t locked in our quarters. We went there of our own volition. We knew there was a serious possibility that we were facing an infectious disease. We learned later that it was not infectious, and when we did, we came out of our quarters and did our jobs.”
Ramirez shook his head in frustration. The prosecution simply was not going the way he expected. Thomas stepped up to cross-examine the witness.
“Doctor Taketani. You are telling us that you and the rest of the Marsbase personnel obeyed the instructions you were given by lawful authority. You trusted her. She was your medical officer, and when people were getting sick, you trusted her instructions to keep you safe. Is that right.”
“Yes, that is true. She had our confidence. She had my confidence.”
“And when Colonel Shepard arrived and took over for Major Barbier, did you extend to him that same confidence?”
“Of course, I’ve known Glenn Shepard for many years. He trained with us. He was one of us.”
“And when he overruled Major Barbier—you were okay with that?”
“Well, everybody on board had been affected one way or another. We hadn’t seen much of an effect on Doctor Barbier until she broke down. Colonel Shepard outranked her. He was the senior doctor aboard. He also hadn’t been affected like the rest of us.”
“One more question. You talk now about how you were all affected. Were you aware of those effects at the time?”
“No. I felt normal, but Yvette told us that we were all acting a little bit strange. We had the headaches and the restlessness, plus lots of us had insomnia. I know there were a few arguments, but we just chalked that up to lack of sleep. It was only when people started falling seriously ill—and when the captain did . . . what she did. We knew something was seriously wrong.”
“And Yvette Barbier was your doctor. She would know, right?”
“Exactly. We trusted her just as we trusted Colonel Shepard.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
“Colonel Shepard. When you arrived on Percheron, the first thing Major Barbier did was to attack you, is that correct?”
“No, that’s not what happened.”
“Colonel, you are under oath, and we do have the bodycam video of the entire time you were on Percheron. Would you like to try that again?”
“Yvette Barbier did not recognize me. She thought I was an intruder. She fought me to protect her ship.”
“Ah, ah, ah, Colonel. You don’t know her motivation!”
“Actually, I do. I was her doctor and counselor for much of the trip home. I have medical diagnoses that prove she was in an altered mental state. She did not know what she was doing.”
“Did she know what she was doing when she tried to seduce you? That seems such a far cry from attack.”
“Copper poisoning causes too much dopamine to be made into norepinephrine. Adrenaline, if you will. A person with excess adrenaline does many things that seem crazy. Moreover, excess norepinephrine causes problems with dopamine-serotonin balance. Virtually every neuropsychological health issue we know has its roots in neurotransmitter imbalance.”
“I don’t need a chemistry lesson, Colonel. Yvette Barbier attacked you twice, mental disorder or not. She disobeyed orders, usurped the chain of command, attacked a superior officer, did she not?”
“No.”
“No? Colonel, I remind you that you are still under oath.”
“Yvette Barbier was suffering from schizophrenia. The name translates to ‘of divided mind.’ We often say that a person is ‘not in their right mind,’ but in this case, it was quite literally true. She conducted herself as a professional—officer and doctor—for as long as she could. Her conscious mind then quite literally watched herself do things she would never do. Yvette will spend a lot of time in therapy, and believe me, she knows what happened. She will live with it for the rest of her life.”
Ramirez threw up his hands in disgust. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
Thomas stepped in front of the stand. “One question, Colonel. What do you think we should decide regarding Major Barbier?”
“I can’t bring myself to blame her. I admit to having held a grudge—wrongly, I might add—and I noticed discrepancies in the medical records from Mars, but I spoke to—hell, I treated—every one of her crewmates. She even assisted me with surgery when I needed her the most. She did nothing wrong. She was as much a victim of copper toxicity as the others.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
Court was dismissed for the day. Yvette’s commanding officer would have the opportunity to speak in front of the ten-officer trial board the next day. Of course, just like Glenn, Yvette’s CO was General Boatright.
Glenn figured he knew what the general would say.
“Mister Thomas, will General Boatright be speaking this morning?”
It was an odd question, since Boatright was sitting right next to Glenn in the gallery.
“No, Your Honor, he communicated to me that everything which needed to be said, has been said.”
A whispered, “By you, Shep,” came from Glenn’s side.
“Very well, the prosecution and defense may present closing arguments.”
Ramirez was stern in recounting the charges against Yvette, but the actual content of his summary was weak. Thomas was much more forceful and convincing. It took only an hour for the panel to return a verdict exonerating Yvette.
“Excellent work,” said Boatright. “OSI is getting off on the right footing. Well done, everyone. Shep, Jen, I’ll see you in the office.”
The general went forward to speak with Yvette, and congratulate Major Thomas. Glenn couldn’t hear what had been said, but there were tears in her eyes. Nik looked triumphant, though. So that was probably a good thing.
What surprised him was that Yvette came over, shook Jen’s hand, and then started a tearful apology. She turned to Glenn, and looked unsure of what to do.
Glenn opened his arms, and she fell into him, sobbing. “I’m so sorry. Thank you, you are so much kinder, so much more alive than I ever thought you’d be. I’m sure you’ve heard this a lot, but you’re a hero to me as well.”
Glenn looked down in embarrassment.
Jen came over, and put her arms around the two of them. “Yes, he is. He just doesn’t know how to admit it. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
Yvette disengaged from the two of them. “I’d like to treat the two of you to dinner, but . . .” She looked over a Nik, who simply nodded. “I think I need to sit with my doctor for a while.”
“No problem. We’ll take you up on it later,” Jen told her. “C’mon, hero, let’s get out of this place. Too many bad memories.”
“Too hot, too . . . I feel like I’m burning . . .”
Glenn collapsed.
CHAPTER 46:
The Beach and the Stars
Beth L @SpaceNewsNetwork
Astronaut, doctor, hero. Colonel Glenn Shepard was rushed to the hospital today after he collapsed while exiting the courtroom complex at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. Shepard had been attending the court martial of Yvette Barbier, chief medical officer of Mars Three / Marsbase One.
Shepard’s testimony was essential to acquitting Barbier of malfeasance charges stemming from her actions during the Percheron Incident.
Our hearts and prayers are with Colonel Shepard and his loved ones tonight.
ChirpChat, July 2044
They’d rushed Glenn to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to determine why he’d collapsed outside the courtroom at JBAB. His internal temperature had been elevated, and he was found to be slightly dehydrated, so the docs gave him intravenous fluids, ice packs, and made him stay in the hospital overnight. They ruled it heat exhaustion, even though he’d been in an air-conditioned building when it happened. He was eventually released with orders to see his doctors at SAMMC for further testing.
Glenn couldn’t help but feel that this was a terrible setback—he’d be back in rehab in San Antonio, and Jen was in D.C.
Fortunately, Marty and his team found the problem less than a day after Glenn entered the facility. His bionic limbs were mostly powered locally, using a combination of internal—battery—and external—beamed power—sources. They were also basically wireless, at least they had no wires connecting inside the body. That was not the case for his bionic eye and ear, they had to be wired into the comm system built into the fleshy part of his left ear, and to the quantum processor of the bionic integration controller implanted in his left hip. Once again, the wiring was kept to a minimum, and well shielded to prevent short-circuits and other hazards.
The same could not be said for his LVAD. While its usage was non-standard—boosting lymph circulation to prevent heat buildup—it was a commercially available medical device, and one of the power leads had been crimped and lost some of its insulation.
As a result, Glenn had experienced occasional jolts of electricity where the wires passed right under the intercostal muscles of his chest. Marty thought that the short-circuits probably dated back to the year after implant, when he’d been in Hawaii. It explained the occasional twinges on the Moon, and on Percheron.
Sometime before or during Yvette’s court martial, the wire had broken, and the LVAD stopped functioning. His collapse had been from overheating, not heat exhaustion or a heart attack.
Glenn was able to return to D.C. the next week, but that was short-lived. There was talk of new assignments on Earth, the Moon, Heinlein, or even the upcoming asteroid missions, but he secretly hoped for Mars.
For now, though, he was back in San Antonio, this time working on protocols for service member rehabilitation with bionics. He was writing the book on how augmented humans would serve in the Space Force to do jobs that a normal human could not. The general had also declared that he needed a PAO assistant, so Jen was there too.
They’d rented a small house in the northeast corner of San Antonio. It was an old neighborhood, with lots of retirees—mostly from the Army and Air Force, but it had its share of Navy, Marines, and Coasties. They turned out to be a great resource, too. Glenn was a regular at meetings in the old golf club and recreation center where the retirees talked about their days in service. Glenn’s office was at Fort Sam Houston, adjacent to SAMMC. He had ready access to the on-base rehab unit, and Nik and Marty’s specialty clinic was just across town.
Jen’s office was out at the old Randolph AFB, about the same distance north that Glenn commuted south. It was an ideal arrangement. The general had made it clear that it wasn’t fraternization when the commanding officers gave permission. Since that was Boatright for both of them, they had no worries about settling into a domestic arrangement.
Jen came home early. It had been a short day, coming off a week of sixteen-to-twenty-hour days where she’d had to spend half of the time at Randolph, and the other half in Shep’s office at Fort Sam. She’d been grocery shopping for a special occasion. She wasn’t sure he would want to celebrate, but she wanted to be prepared. It had been two years since the launch of the Bat. Writing his biography meant that Jen was intimately familiar with what constituted important dates in his life. It might be a strange event to commemorate it, but she wanted to remember it.
On this day, two years ago, Shep had admitted that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
Nik and Sheila would be coming to dinner. They’d invited Marty and his wife, but the surgeon had to go to Los Angeles to prep a patient for transfer to SAMMC. This one would receive some of the same advanced bionics as Shep.
She looked around at her surroundings. The owner said the house had been in the family for eighty years, but updated several times. There were a few outdated pieces of furniture—and even more in a detached garage out back—supplemented with her own things. Glenn simply didn’t have much except for his room at Aunt Sally’s apartment. She’d finally exited the lease on her Richmond apartment. It was no longer her home, and she knew that her future held a lot of moving, temporary lodging, and likely prolonged separation.
Let’s see—we’ll hide Nik and Sheila over there, and they’ll jump out . . . No, too risky. We’ll wait out front . . . No. Nik and Sheila should be sitting on the couch when I open the door. She was in the kitchen when she heard the front door to the apartment. Oh no, he’s early. Nik isn’t here yet!
Shep was in the entrance with a big grin on his face. This was more than just the date on the calendar. He had big news and couldn’t wait to share it.
“Hey, love, I’ve got something to tell you!” He reached out and grabbed her around the waist with his right arm.
“Cool your jets, flyboy. I’ve got to get dinner out and company’s coming.”
“Wait, what? Company? What are we having?”
“Well, I was thinking of something Hawaiian, kalbi ribs, some kalua pork, maybe some poké—but I couldn’t get the poké. I did manage to find a Golden Wave ale for you, though.”
Shep looked dumbstruck. “Really?”
“No, not really. But I have mahi-mahi for the grill, and I wasn’t kidding about the beer.”
As the implications sunk in, his grin became bigger. “Ah! So that must mean the company is Nik and Sheila! In that case, the news can wait until dinner. Need some help in there?”
“Nope, the mahi is fresh, but the rest is prepack. Nik and Sheila will be here any minute. Go see to our guests.”
The small dinner party was a success. Shep did indeed appreciate her timing for the celebration. The fact that Nik was there as well, reinforced the positive nature of the experience. Sheila was intelligent and witty, although quite shy. She sat very close to Nik, holding his arm as if having finally caught him, she had no intention of letting him go.
